The damning thing about being an Omega was that, even on suppressants and blockers, there were still some aspects of his biology that would resurface from time to time, whether he wanted them to or not. Sometimes, in the more reckless and violent bouts, one good, rough shag would be more than enough to sate the tingles that flared up from the base of his spine like glowing embers waiting for a chance to spark. This, he could actually handle pretty well. Most of the time, however, the urges, if you could call them that, manifested in subtler means—like a demanding cat that would persistently wound at your feet to get your attention, even if it meant tripping you flat on your face in the process. Urges, such as the need to simply… cuddle, to be held, to bask in a comforting scent. To feel safe.
These were the ones that he really, really despised. Probably because they made him feel needy in ways that were even more vulnerable than actually calling up someone for sex.
“Is there a reason you’re naked in my bed?”
Bond’s eyelashes were sticky with sleep when he flickered his eyes open to peer at Q, who was arching a curious eyebrow at him, hands high on his hips. He looked more disapproving than he sounded, and Bond shifted just so his head was propped up on one hand now. He hadn’t thought he would have come close to dozing just lying there, but the cozy bed, soft linens, and warm blanket had truly calmed him more than he had expected.
“I’ve missed you?” He tried for a smile, which came out better and more genuine than it had in the past couple of hours, since he had had the time to recharge himself for a bit here… nestled in the comforting, fresh scent between these sheets that was familiar and entirely Q’s.
He had just gotten back from a three-month mission. Not that it was high-stressed (not until toward the end), but the long periods of isolated waiting and tracking his targets had not been pleasant on the part of his brain where his Omega instincts resided. By the time he had gotten back to Six to submit his reports, the cold, impersonal halls that were usually neutral to him had become almost suffocating, unbearable against the itch that had wedged itself under his skin for the past couple of weeks. He had been trying to ignore it best as he could, but apparently, his resolve hadn’t been enough because when his action had finally registered back into his mind, he had already been unlocking the door to Q’s flat using the spare key that had been given to him, and had let himself in.
Looking at the haphazardly pile of discarded clothes on the floor just a few paces away from Q’s feet, he supposed the rest of what had happened was clear.
Q scoffed and rolled his eyes at Bond’s answer, and for a moment, Bond wondered if he had done the wrong thing by stopping by uninvited like this. After all, he and Q had only been having casual sex so far, and it wasn’t as if he was about to offer any of that right then in this state anyway. Whenever he was like this, sex was actually the last resort for Bond, and was only there because it came with a side-serving of physical closeness.
(He had tried having sex to ease these primal needs for loneliness avoidance before, and it had always backfired on him by increasingly aggravating the issue.)
“If you—” Bond began, his stomach sinking a little, not least because he didn’t want to leave this pleasant bed to go back to his own stale and cold one.
Selfishly, he hadn’t thought about this, about him probably crossing the line by appearing in Q’s flat out of the blue, when he had been taking off his clothes and settling his achy body between these sheets. And now, he sort of regretted it—because being with Q was easy, and losing it would mean losing a sort of safety he had grown rather used to, and appreciative of, in the past year.
Not to mention they still had to work together.
“Honestly, you couldn’t have fed the cats before you barricaded yourself in? They were positively miffed when I came home just now.” Q shook his head with an exasperated sigh and turned toward the closet. He rummaged through his clothes with Bond’s blinking eyes following his back, and emerged clutching a pair of pyjamas bottoms that had planetary prints on them.
Q was not in the habit of sleeping completely in the nude, and Bond suspected this had something to do with the fact that the young man had poor blood circulation.
“Have you eaten anything yet?” Q asked, changing right there in front of Bond without a hint of hesitation.
“Uh… no,” Bond said slowly, watching Q, the pyjama bottoms riding a little low on his hips, get into bed next to him.
“Figured.” Q leant against the headboard and opened the laptop he had brought with him on his lap. “Rest for now, we can eat later. I bought takeaways.”
Bond looked at Q for longer than what was necessary, trying to process what was going on and what it all meant to him and to their relationship. But other than the fact that his sleep-deprived, addled mind wasn’t working at optimal speed, there was a purring Omega in the back of his skull as well, and since this was undoubtedly a very good bed to be in, with the owner of said bed right beside him now even, Bond supposed there was no reason why he should waste this chance with complicated thoughts.
And so, Bond allowed himself to lie down, one arm reaching to drape across Q’s middle, and pressed his forehead against a patch of soft, warm skin of the younger man’s bare torso, a small sigh tumbling out from his lungs.
For the first time in a long time, he was contented and safe.
Notes: Canon divergence AU–Q and Bond’s first meeting goes very differently. For the mi6cafe prompt ‘Eff.’
Q woke up with a gun in his face. It was being held by a hard-eyed man who was hiding what looked like a lot of muscles underneath his Tom Ford suit.
Well. Q had always known someone would come for him one day. He gripped the blankets in order to keep his hands out of trouble, stop them from doing something silly like trying to fight back. His mobile was…somewhere. Great; very helpful. “Can I help you?” he asked, squinting to look at the man beyond the barrel of the gun. Blue eyes, blond hair, grim expression, slightly blurry. When Q had time, he was going to engineer a pair of glasses he could wear to bed.
“You can,” the man confirmed. “You’re going to come with me. There’s an important woman who wants a word with you, something about needing some IT help with our servers. Can’t imagine why.” His mouth quirked in a fake smile. He stepped back, his eyes never leaving Q, and jerked the gun in a ‘get up’ gesture.
Q extricated himself from the blankets with care, not wanting to aggravate the man with the gun with any sudden movements. Whose servers, exactly…? He had been in so many of them.
As he shifted, his knee knocked against his mobile under the sheets.
“What?” the man asked immediately. Shit; apparently he was the type of goon who could actually use his eyes, and Q was far too used to being able to hide his face behind a screen.
“My phone,” Q said, because he couldn’t lie worth a damn. He could, however, trick himself into feeling a very specific fear. What if the man destroyed it? It had taken ages to make that mobile! He looked up at the man with wide eyes.
“Throw it on the floor next to my feet,” the man directed.
Q let his relief show. Not destroyed just yet. He focused on that thought—he was relieved the man wasn’t destroying his hard work—even as his clever fingers gripped the phone under the blankets and executed their triple-tapping trick on the power button before drawing it out and tossing it at the man’s feet.
Q started a mental countdown. 30, 29, 28…
“Up,” the man repeated. “And I’ll take this, since it seems so important.” He picked the phone up and slipped it into his jacket pocket, his gun never wavering.
Don’t throw me in the briar patch, Brer Fox.
“Please don’t,” Q said, still honestly concerned in his brain’s own tricky way.After all, what if the man had a pacemaker?
“Now,” the man repeated, snapping his gloved fingers. “We have somewhere to be.” 18, 17, 16…
“That’s a Beretta, isn’t it?” Q asked.
The man stepped forward, apparently impatient, and Q flinched away, hands held high, not a threat, definitely not a threat. He couldn’t have the man touching him.
“Only,” Q said, “it’s a great gun, but it’s got an external hammer, right? It tends to snag?”
The man stared at him. “What?”
8…7…6…
“You should use something like a Walther PPK,” Q said. “Still small, still automatic, better draw time.”
The man drew in a quick breath, eyes narrowing. “Yes, please keep lecturing one of Her Majesty’s top agents about his own gun, you little—” At that point the man’s mouth dropped open, his eyes flicking down to his chest where the needle-like probes from Q’s mobile-cum-taser prototype had just stabbed him, probably in multiple locations. “F—”
The ‘uck’ was lost in a shout as electricity crackled through the air and the man’s body convulsed, fifteen million volts of electricity coursing through him. A few moments later, he was twitching on the ground, his gun thrown clear by his trembling fingers. Thank fuck it hadn’t gone off.
Q jerked open his bedside drawer, withdrew a medical syringe full of ketamine, double-checked that it was free of air bubbles, and then stabbed the man in the shoulder. He kept his finger on the plunger until it was empty. It was difficult to fatally overdose someone on ketamine. If they were lucky, the man would stay in a happy, unmoving daze for a few hours, and he wouldn’t even remember Q when he woke up; ketamine often had amnesiac effects.
(If they were unlucky, or if the man already had alcohol in his bloodstream…well, the man would still be mostly paralyzed, but it might be a bad trip.)
Q grabbed his glasses, his laptop, and his go bag. After waiting a few interminable minutes to make sure the man was really out, he dragged him into the recovery position so he wouldn’t drown in his own vomit.
Sorry not sorry, he wrote, scribbling a note to leave under the man’s gun. I don’t do well in captivity.
He had his fake papers and his disguise in his bag. A few hours would be plenty of time to get out of England and into a safer sort of country. It wasn’t like the man would chase him across the globe, right?
Most of your fandom experience is shaped by who you follow. Find a good group of people and stick with them.
Support your favs and a lot of them will become your friends, or at least be friendly back to you.
Just unfollow people who bring unwanted content or negativity onto your dash.
Block people who cause you stress. It’s not worth your time to focus on parts of fandom that don’t make you happy.
Blacklisting words/tags is a tool you are allowed to use as much as you need to.
Don’t feel like you have to pretend to like things that make you uncomfortable in order to fit in. Set healthy boundaries for yourself.
Never tag your hate. Never send hate anons to someone.
Content creators love getting comments, seeing people gush in the tags on reblogs, and getting fans in their inbox. It’s the best way to motivate them to keep making awesome stuff.
If there’s certain content you want to see but it doesn’t exist yet, then make it. Draw the thing, write that fic. If you can’t, then comission an artist or writer, or send someone a prompt if they’re open to it. If you can’t do that either, then write meta or headcanons about it. Put it into the world.
Create what you love. Do it for yourself first and foremost, and if even one other person likes it too, then that’s a bonus.
Okay, are we seriously not going to talk about this majestic af robe from Iron Man 2? Y’all disappoint me.
Hmmm guys, can I make a few additions?
“After months in hell I still look fine as fuck”
“I look soft but I’m Vengeful Prepare To Feel My Wrath”
“I know I’m a delight and you feel honored to be in my presence. You’re welcome.”
“I’m wearing a Black Sabbath shirt because, you know, Iron Man”
“I’m wearing a suit because I am a Serious Billionaire Business Man but also a silly shirt because I Don’t Like Rules and sunglasses to hide im heartbroken”
“I Am supposed to be A Responsible Adult And You’re Grounded Young Man”
Anyway no one can lose this argument because we’re all winning.
I know one of y’all put him dressed in this and it looking all nice and put together like it’s worth a few million dollars or something BUT CAN WE ALSO POINT OUT HOW GOOD HE LOOKS WITH EVERYTHING LOOSENED??? Homeboy is looking like a goddamn snackmealbuffet in that outfit hot damn.
*happy sigh*
Throwing my vote to the black tank top, BUT I’M LIVING FOR EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE.
Frostiron AU where Tony winds up at a party on Sakaar:
“Oh shit, I’m in trouble.” Stay cool stay cool stay cool, Tony chants in his head as Loki approaches him, a nonchalant persona firmly in place after that first surprised reaction. Courtiers of all shapes, sizes and colors, wearing truly ridiculous outfits jostle in front of him. Loki nimbly sidesteps all of them with a smile and a few soft words, so utterly and completely different from when he lead the invasion. Tony’s heart rate picks up.
“What in the Nine Realms are you doing here, Stark?” Loki says with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. His posture is relaxed, but the grip he has around that ridiculous little martini glass is tense.
“I could ask you the same thing, Lazarus,” Tony smiles back, mirroring Loki’s pleasant expression, “Or is coming back from the dead just a hobby for you?”
Something ugly flashes through Loki’s eyes, a shadow of a memory. But his smile stays firmly in place.
“If it is, it is not one I meant to take up,” Loki’s tone is light and airy. Dismissive. His eyes bore into Tony’s, the warning in them clear. Right. Touchy subject.
“How else does anyone get here? I was investigating some weird readings in New York which lead me to Norway of all places and fell through a damn portal. Say, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
Tony knows damn well Loki should. There’d been a Bifrost imprint on the grass there clear as day, along with readings that were suspiciously similar to Mjolnir. He’d hoped to find Thor at the end of this particular rollercoaster. Figures he’s bumped into someone that is supposed to be dead instead. Sakaar, home of the lost and abandoned indeed. What does that say about him then?
Loki is about to reply when his already pale complexion pales further. He knocks back his drink and pastes the fakest smile Tony has ever seen on his face into place. He grabs Tony’s hand, ignoring Tony’s racing heart. Surely even in this madhouse Loki won’t kill him in public?
“Follow my lead and you might just survive this,” he breathes. Tony can barely hear him over the music.
“Loki, who’s your new friend?”
Well shit. He just can’t catch a break, can he, he thinks as the Grandmaster shimmies his way towards them. He’s pretty sure he can usually talk his way out of anything without Loki’s help, but the Goblin King is insane and has weird powers Tony doesn’t even want to think about.
So Tony relaxes in Loki’s hold and eases into his playboy persona that has gotten him out of many similar, but much more mundane situations.
Shadow In The Light 